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Before we even get a chance to learn everyone's name, Sydney is dead. Yeah, that Sydney. From the original show. If you didn't watch the original show (neither did I), she's one of the old faces making way for the new ones. She makes a lot of room when she ends up face down in the apartment pool. This freaks everyone out to have all seen their landlord taken away in a body bag, but not enough to derail these new characters from returning to their own problems so we can get to know them. Convenient.
The only character of the lot who really seems troubled by Sydney's murder is David, supposed illegitimate son of Dr. Michael Mancini from the original series. The grief might be because David happened to be the last person to see her alive. He had a thing going on with Sydney and was the only one to respond to a distress call the night of her death. He's detained as a possible suspect until his friend Ella bails him out with a fake alibi, saying he was with her all night. A flashback tells us that Sydney was planning to evict Ella because she told David that Sydney was sleeping with his father. Motive? Maybe.
Then, there's the cutesy couple, Jonah and Riley, highlighted mainly by Jonah's man-child antics. He's a filmmaker who uses his iMovie tricks to propose to Riley who is hesitant to accept because of the aforementioned immaturity. The proposal is also conveniently interrupted by a scream upon the discovery of Sydney's dead body, allowing it to become a story arc. See how that works, melodrama writers? It takes the rejection of a $100,000 offer from Thomas Sterling -- another throwback character -- after Jonah accidentally catches him on film cheating on his wife to get Riley to say yes to Jonah. She's so easy.
We also have a struggling doctor, Lauren, who can't afford to go to medical school and sinks to accepting an indecent proposal from a patient's son after wrestling with the moral dilemma of sex for money. Come on. Could there ever be any doubt she would accept the offer? Where's the predictable, sordid plot twists we've come to expect from a show bearing the name Melrose Place. Oh. Never mind.
Then we have the characters that are touched on lightly, which you know means they are hiding something. There's Auggie the cook. Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's character Violet is the new girl in the complex and happens to be the one to stumble upon Sydney's corpse. Her words of wisdom (you know there's a problem when Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's character is the one doling out wisdom) lead Lauren to mull over her hooker potential. That looks like the start of a beautiful friendship right there.
Everything becomes a jumbled mess at the end as the episode tries to connect everyone. There's some sort of odd, makeshift memorial held for Sydney with all the new characters in attendance, which only consists of a brief toast. It becomes quite clear that Ella has a thing for Jonah when she reacts in disgust at the announcement of Riley's acceptance of his proposal. David tries to mack on her and gets shot down. He goes and does some cat burglary instead to cool off. Ella goes out and gets freaky with some random woman while being tailed by police. Violet asks out Auggie, but he blows her off to go dispose of some bloody clothes. And... wait, what?! It's always the characters you don't develop.
Welcome to the new old Melrose Place where everything is still sleazy, but covered with the glaze of 2009.
-- Pablo G. is a guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. Check him out at Space Monkeys!, Obscure Sports Reference, and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open with quick zoom cuts through a jumping nightclub. A lot of beautiful people doing dimly-lit beautiful things. As the camera provocatively cuts through the club trying to make things seem way edgier than they are, we end up in a cramped corridor where there's some heavy making out going on between two blondes. A guy and a girl. We're starting off simple, people. That is, until the guy's iPhone goes off with a text. Make-Out Girl tells him not to even think about it, but he sneaks a glance after telling her of course he won't. Wow, the lying has already begun. We're not even five minutes in. The text reads: "In serious trouble. Come. Now!" Let's ignore that choice of punctuation for now.
Cut to an attractive blonde having a cocktail conversation with two hipster-type guys about their client who has gone "from Inside the Actors Studio to outside of Coco De Ville doing blow with somebody else's boyfriend." Sounds fun. Hipster #1 points out that they're agents, the hipsters are, not baby-sitters. Attractive blonde responds that their client needs a new publicist. They need her. Make-Out Guy from before interrupts to tell Attractive Blonde, "Ella, Sydney's in trouble." Now, all of this paragraph happens in roughly 2.5 seconds. Without a DVR, you'd miss Ella's name and profession right out of the gate. We'll see if that really matters in the long-run. Make-Out Guy tells Ella that he has to go despite her protestation that he's her ride. He hands her a $100 bill and tells her to "cab it." Gotta love the attempt at hip dialogue there. Exit Make-Out Guy who still has no real name. Ella looks at the money, turns to Hipsters #1 and #2 and asks if they want another shot. I wish I was a hipster still.
In the club's kitchen, things are busy and they're cooking up lobster. Mmm. Make-Out-Guy-Without-A-Name-Still walks up to the cook with the lobster, who we find out is named Auggie, and asks him to come back to the penthouse with him because Sydney was totally trashed earlier. We haven't met Sydney yet (or have we?), but I already like her. "You're the only one who knows how to deal with her when she gets like this," he tells Auggie, but Auggie can't leave because they're swamped in the kitchen. He tells... jeez why doesn't he have a name yet (?) that if Sydney is really in trouble when he gets there, to call him and he'll try to get out of the kitchen. The guy that isn't Auggie walks away.
Jarring cut to a hospital from a rolling stretcher medical drama point-of-view where a young female doctor is comforting an older woman who is being carted along with that stretcher cam. She meets up with her supervising physician and gives him the rundown of the patient before her phone rings. It's nameless guy on the other end asking the doctor -- whose name is Lauren -- when she gets off if she can meet him at the penthouse. He says she's in pretty bad shape as if it's assumed that there can be only one person they could be talking about. Lauren says she can't get out because she's working the graveyard shift, but stops to give some advice. "Listen to me, David," (his name is David!) "If you can't wake her up, or if her eyes don't dilate, don't waste time calling me, OK? You gotta call 9-1-1." Yeah, David. Don't bother me with your potential life or death situation when I'm a health professional. Ass.
David arrives at The Complex and there's a trying-way-too-hard-to-establish-something drop crane shot as he enters the archway with the famous address of 4616 Melrose Place. This is immediately followed by a soap opera-style establishing shot of Sydney lurking in the dark of her apartment, staring out her window past David as he walks up the steps to her door. He opens the unlocked door and cautiously searches for Sydney. He finds her having a drink at her little bar and looks more pissed off than relieved. She lounges in her seat and tells David she knows this is the last place he wants to be right now, but she's done something really, really bad. David's like, "Yeah, whatever. Adios," and turns to leave, but she implores him to stay. He asks her why he should after all her lies, and she goes into nostalgia mode about how when she lived here before it was like a big family. She thought if she came back she could have a family like that again, but everyone has abandoned her. David says he isn't going to feel sorry for her and he has a life now that doesn't include her. He starts to leave, but Sydney's last gambit is to threaten David with some things he might've told her when they were still close. He perks up and asks her what she wants. Sydney asks him just to stay. He obliges. David, that's the first thing they teach you about dealing with manipulative cougars.
CGI transition from night skies over The Complex to fake, pink, morning skies. A young couple spoons in bed, practically fully clothed as their alarm clock goes off. You're already starting to lose me, MP. Female half of the couple asks what the occasion is for the early wake-up. Is male half going to help her teach the pledge of allegiance to her students? A teacher. That could get interesting... Ok, maybe not. They do the brushing teeth thing together as male explains he has some film editing to do and a birthday party to shoot. Female asks what's on tap for tonight with an obvious agenda and male brushes past her with way-too-obvious male obliviousness. A screening of a new print of Reservoir Dogs is tonight, he says. I wish you weren't just being a cheesy boyfriend and you were really going to that, male. We could be friends. There are way too many pop culture references in this scene. I skipped over Halo because I hate Halo, but there's that, Reservoir Dogs, Lord of the Rings and then the píèce de résistance. After trying to get male (revealed to be named Jonah) to acknowledge their anniversary, he plops down in front of the TV for misdirection and begins playing a sappy home movie of the couple set to Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life." Lame. I don't care what your film credentials are, that's the laziest romantic gesture I've ever seen, and I once gave my girlfriend a Ren & Stimpy T-shirt for her birthday. And question: who was filming these shared moments between them? They're together in practically every shot of this iMovie travesty. He does manage to pull off some impressive (actually, I think it's rather scary) misdirection again when his film self says "Happy 5 Year Anniversary, Riley Richardson. Oh, and one more thing..." She turns to see Jonah has disappeared from his seat on the couch (see? scary) and is now kneeling beside her with a ring. He asks her the question and there's a scream. Not a scream of joy, mind you, but a shriek from outside. They rush out of their apartment to find a deer-in-headlights redhead (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz) staring down in fright as they are joined by the rest of the new cast around the swimming pool. Something tells me we're going to see that look a lot from Ashlee. The camera pulls back from their faces to show Sydney face down in the pool, her blood mixing with the chlorine and who knows what else in the Melrose Place swimming pool of indiscretion.
Cue logo title card floating... underwater. Classy.
Commercials highlighted by the Melrose Place Premiere Party. Or lowlighted, depending on how you look at it.
Back to the scene of the crime and there's a forensics team police-taping off the area. Everyone's blaming themselves for not answering the call-to-arms the night before. Auggie says he should've come back with David. Jonah asks Ella what the police had to say. They say she was stabbed in the doorway, there was a struggle down the stairs and she collapsed in the pool. Wow, how did they know all of that? Was it the trail of blood which anyone could've seen roped off by police tape? The group feels sorry for the little redhead who happened upon Sydney's corpse because she's a new tenant. Jonah wonders aloud how this could happen and Ella gives a cold response about stabbing people in the back and karma returning the favor. Ella, c
all me. Auggie doesn't take kindly to Ella's remark and bails. Jonah thinks he should follow, but Riley reminds him of his film engagement. Oops... poor choice of words. Sorry, guys. Riley tries to talk Jonah out of going, but Ella is like, "Yeah... you might be able to skip out on your lame teaching job, but the rest of us are glamorous. Let me talk to your boyfriend." She reminds Jonah that he has the opportunity to hand over his short film to a three-time Oscar-winning producer. Ella walks off, saying not to worry about Auggie. The camera follows her exit right into... Auggie, who is chatting up the little redhead. Her name is Violet. They're talking about how he met Sydney. At an AA Meeting. No joke here. That's some serious stuff. Apparently, Sydney convinced Auggie to become a cook. I'd feel sad here, but we really haven't seen yet if Auggie is a good cook. That might've been a mean-spirited slight to encourage him to go into a profession he would suck at. Don't put it past ol' dead Sydney. Lauren runs in simply to ask Auggie where David is. Yeah. Where is David?
Cut to him being interrogated. Both David and the investigator are trying to play hardball and it's coming out more like T-ball. It plays out like any other overripe interrogation scene would. Investigator reveals David comes from a rich family but he's a troubled kid. David refuses to answer anything without a lawyer. Blah blah blah. Of course, before anything good can happen, someone busts in to say David is free to go for now.
Ella is the one who has come to David's rescue. She catches his attention by calling him "O.J." Niiiiice. And tactful. David asks her how she was able to spring him. She gave a fake alibi, saying he was with her last night. David is more alarmed at the prospect of people thinking they hooked up last night than the implications of Ella lying to the police. Hooking up with a hot manipulative blonde during the timeframe you're suspected of murder is an alarming prospect for most men, I suppose. Ella says, who cares? "Oh, so it gives them something to tweet about." Wow. We're past the point-of-no-return on this show's desperation to make sure no one forgets this show is current. They walk out together in a hurry as the investigator looks on with bravado. Let him puff out his chest. He really gave a good show in that interrogation room. He thinks.
Back at the hospital, Lauren is talking with the same patient from earlier. The conversation veers over to the patient's son who flew in from Manhattan to see his mother who has had a minor heart attack. Lauren takes notice of how caring the young man is with his mother before she gets a phone call and has to excuse herself. It's her father and he's been laid off from his job. This is relevant for two reasons: Reference to the current state of the economy. CHECK. Conflict for Lauren's character because it seems now she has to cover her own tuition for med school. CHECK. Hey, I empathize with anyone struggling in this economy, but it's called scholarships. The kind your dad doesn't give you.
Back at the young lovebirds' nest, Jonah and Riley are trying to get their day back in order. Can't let your landlord's brutal murder which happened right outside your door stop you. It's like Pink Floyd said, "Out of my way. It's a busy day. I've got things on my mind." Riley tries to slip out behind the elephant in the room, but Jonah calls elephant on her. "What's the deal?" he asks her. Her reaction to the question seems to say, "Oh, right! The proposal. Yeeeeeah. About that. MMMMmmmmmmmsorrygottagobye!" That actually might've been a better response than the non-committal crap she gives Jonah. He's had plenty of time to mull this over, she says, and she's dealing with what happened today with Sydney. She asks for one more day to think. Jonah looks off to the side for a second and cuts her with "It's not supposed to be a homework assignment. It's a yes or no question." This poor girl needs a new job if she's going to hang. I love you, teachers of America. I really do. Riley asks if they can talk about this another time, and Jonah goes passive-aggressive. Jeez, no wonder she's being hesitant. She walks out.
Ella and David are just now walking out of the police station. I know this show isn't in real-time, but jeez. What is that police station -- a cavern? Ella asks what really happened last night. David just remembers them hitting the bottle and him waking up with Sydney already gone. He wonders to Ella why she lied for him. She says that she knows he doesn't have it in him to kill anyone. David suspects that he's her alibi. Ella laughs as she checks her teeth in a parked car's mirror. She says if she did it she wouldn't have been so sloppy. Cue weird flashback reverie of Ella coming home to find Sydney in her apartment. They go back and forth with small jabs until Sydney asks Ella how she could tell David she was sleeping with his father. I think Ella could tell him because it's conducive to way more acceptable behavior for all involved than Sydney hooking up with David. That's just me. Ella tries to beat back Sydney's barbs, but she's obviously over-matched by the old school Melrose Placer. It's like playing against that old man on the basketball court with an afro. No matter how old he is, you're about to get done. Sydney does Ella by telling her she has until the end of the month to get out. She's being evicted. Swish! David snaps Ella out of her daydream just in time for a slick Mercedes to pull up beside them. "You called your dad?!" Ella asks, surprised. David says he didn't as the Mercedes opens its passenger door, DeLorean-style to reveal Dr. Michael Mancini of Melrose Place fame. Wait... I suppose that doesn't work here. Um...yeah. He tells David to get in the car.
COMMERCIALS. Premiere party again! Text Facebook or something. To get... updates? Why? If you say so.
Pleasant car ride between father and illegitimate son. Some details about the doctor's history are rehashed for the new audience. He helped Sydney fake her death 11 years ago and cheated on his wife with her. Sydney was sleeping with David to get back at him. David takes the opportunity to swipe at his estranged father by telling him Sydney said he's better in bed. Take that, dad. David's mother is dead, apparently, and Dr. Mancini spent 13 years or so denying David's existence. Take that, son. David points out he never calls his father to ask for anything, and suggests he call his lawyer because the police will come to him . This gets the doctor angry enough to pull over the Mercedes right to a bridge full of homeless bums so he can kick David out. Take that, bums.
At a colorful outdoor birthday party, Ella meets up with Jonah and starts leading him around while talking like any good publicist can do in their sleep. She's there conveniently to try and get the birthday girl into US Weekly. For our purposes, she's there so that Jonah's awkward stage as a character gets some narration for this scene. Ella listens to Jonah whine about not wanting to go through with this for about a minute before she cuts him off. I'm falling in love. She tells Jonah he's a good filmmaker and she's not just saying that because she's his publicist, manager and agent. It's because she has a thing for him, which she doesn't do a very good job of hiding at the end of her pep talk. Jonah gets the hint and tells her he proposed to Riley today. Katie Cassidy nails Ella's reaction here. Her mouth drops open in a stupified way, she looks up for words or thoughts for a moment, blanks the look on her face before turning three o'clock and walking away without saying a word. We won't say anything about the look on Jonah's face.
Lily Allen plays while Lauren prints out some past due bills at the hospital. She then gets asked out by sick woman patient's son. Beware, Lauren, Lily Allen is supposed to play at the end of a relationship, not the beginning. It doesn't help that the guy looks like a creepy cross between Clark Kent, Jared Leto and a guy who should be taking a seat with Chris Hansen.
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p>Back at the birthday party shoot, things have deteriorated into some sort of Bollywood-themed... something. Slumdog Millionaire should be stripped of all its Oscars simply because it inspired this. Ella is hard at work trying to talk Jonah out of monogamy. "Hey, I love love. I just hate monogamy." Just as I'm about to say they're writing Ella as if she's a guy, she drools over one of the female partygoers. Way to cop out, MP, and turn her into a bi-sexual stereotype. It was good while it lasted, El. She continues trying to plant a seed of doubt and sees her opportunity when Jonah has to admit Riley's doubt. Ella asks Jonah if it doesn't concern him that after five years there's any doubt at all in Riley's mind. Jonah thinks on it.
Lauren walks in on Riley being thoughtful and dumps her financial thoughtfulness on her. Riley suggests getting everyone at The Complex to scrounge up a loan for her. Lauren gets emotional about working so hard to get where she is. Some little tidbits about Lauren are revealed. She's Ella's roommate and at some point she has made out with Auggie. After the heart-to-heart, Lauren finds Riley's potential engagement ring. Riley responds with "nothing's really official" and the look on her face is worthy of ending this scene.
Back in Bollywood, Ella is getting ready to leave. She throw out an invite to the Reservoir Dogs screening in a way that sounds more like she's saying "you should've picked me instead of Riley" and points out Mr. Sarling AKA big movie producer. She encourages Jonah to introduce himself. He goes through with it, and everything is going fine until he tries to hand Sarling a copy of his film. He looks at Jonah incredulously. "I hire you to document my little girl's birthday and you're pimping your student film? Wow." He walks off, leaving Jonah with his goofy self to lament what he just did.
Back at the young love nest, Riley details her anxiety to Lauren and then falls back into her love for Jonah, but her love of his little idiosyncrasies is the same thing that gives her pause. She wants to know that he's going to be the type of guy who can seriously handle raising a family.
David shows up at the restaurant and talks to Auggie, where he gets the third degree about what happened. It's basically the same scene as the one David had with Ella earlier. He wonders if he could've killed Sydney during his drunken blackout and Auggie insists David isn't a murderer. Auggie differs from Ella in that he declares he wants to get revenge on whoever did this to Sydney. Otherwise, same scene in a kitchen. Maybe lobster would've spiced things up a bit.
Nightfall has descended on Bollywood. Demoted to videographer, Jonah is ready to get out of the scene of his embarrassment. He's on his way out with his friend when he's intercepted by Mr. Sarling's daughter who asks Jonah to go inside and get one last shot of her presents arranged to form the number eighteen. While inside, he catches Mr. Sarling fooling around with one of the partygoers. Oops. He gives Jonah an exasperated look like, "Didn't I already bid you good day, sir? Well, let me remind you, I said good day!" Though, I may be giving him a bit too much credit.
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We're with Dr. Michael Mancini again as he drives home. Why? You've got me. He's Bluetoothing to his wife and promises to read his son Goodnight Moon when he gets home. Goodnight, this scene. It just started and I want it over with already. Flashback to a meeting with Sydney where she tells him she's through with David. She tries to come onto him and he deflects her, but apparently he called her at some point, which leads Sydney to believe he wants her attention. She leaves him there after telling him she cares about him too much to see him in a bad marriage, and threatening to tell his wife about them. He's woken up from his flashback by cars honking. Thank you, jerkface drivers.
Lauren's on her dinner date with Clark Leto, the Magnificent Pedophile. Lauren is rambling, but things are going well. They seem to have hit it off. Then, slick momma's boy (his name is actually Toby. Could he be any creepier?) invites her back to his hotel where he was supposedly upgraded to a nice suite. Lauren declines the invite, citing no nookie on the first date, but Toby declares there'll be no second date. He has to fly home tomorrow. He takes this opportunity to reveal he caught a glimpse of her print-out bills and offers her a "donation" of $5,000. PROSTITUTION! Ahem... sorry. I just get so excited at the prospect of PROSTITUTION! He tries to give her the room number as she storms out of the restaurant. Momma taught you wrong, Toby.
Back at the birthday party, Jonah is hightailing it out of there with his buddy in tow. Just as they're about to escape, Sarling comes hurrying out after them. Sarling, being the crafty man you would expect, offers Jonah's friend -- who is slightly larger -- some dessert inside while he gives Jonah some "career tips." He asks Jonah where the tape is as if it's some sort of wonderful drug. Jonah understands the situation, but tells Mr. Sarling the tape contains footage of the event he can't sacrifice. Sarling is past all that and offers to buy Jonah's film for $25,000. Jonah is still being rational and not seeing the Hollywood magic happening in front of him as Sarling ups the offer each time Jonah expresses uncertainty. Mrs. Sarling comes out to get her husband just as his offer reaches $100,000 in addition to Jonah getting to write the feature. Mr. Sarling heads back into the party as his wife calls out to Jonah, "Remember to use that Lady Gaga song!" Jonah wide-eyed and mouth agape. Yeah, Lady Gaga puts that look on my face, too, Jonah.
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Lauren on her way back from her dating debacle runs into Violet by the pool. Violet asks if Lauren's OK, to which Lauren starts spilling all her problems. When she hears about the indecent proposal, Violet offers her mom's advice to always carry pepper spray in L.A. They get into the details and Violet's like, "That's a lot of money." She takes a minute to reflect and laughs to herself before saying, "You ended up not getting the guy or the money?" This seems to strike a chord with Lauren before Violet sends it home with, "You and me -- we're good girls. It's just not as fun." And I have to ask, why is Ashlee Simpson-Wentz philosophizing? This does not bode well.
Jonah comes home with Riley excited about lots of voicemails from Gary Sarling's agent. Apparently, the girl he was putting his lips on was his daughter's best friend. Yikes. Lots of crossing of age boundaries here. Anyway, he tells Riley what the messages are all about and goes into a speech about how he called Sarling to accept the offer on his way home because he thought if he said yes to him, Riley would say yes to Jonah. He thought it would show her how serious he is about his career. Then, he changes gears after he sees the look on Riley's face. The whole speech was a lie. He doesn't want to end up with Riley that way. So, if I understand this correctly, Riley gives in to Jonah's integrity and gets over her fear that he won't be a responsible adult even though he just dismissed financial security for them both. I guess. "You are a grown-up. A very adorable grown-up," Riley says. "I do. I do. I do." Glad we settled that story arc. It was really pressing. By the way, did one of you kill Sydney?
COMMERCIALS. The premier party winds down. Everyone's saying goodnight. Hey we've still got 9 minutes to go. Are you ducking out early? That's kind of rude.
Weird goodbye party memorial thing for Sydney. Auggie's making a toast and all he can muster really is Sydney was "a woman who was never boring." Jonah takes the opportunity to steal Sydney's thunder and announces his and Riley's engagement, even going so far as to make the comment that it's funny that on the day Sydney should die, he should start living. Really? Ella walks away in disgust. Not at the oblivious audacity of the comment, but at the thought of seeing Jonah off the market. Dav
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id tries to mack on Ella before she can get away and he gets shot down. Violet stops Auggie and asks him out to coffee. Auggie declines. These kids got no game.
Closing montage. Let's try and keep track of it all, shall we? Jonah and Riley get it on in a bathtub. Lauren crunches some budget numbers. David researches a priceless painting. Auggie heads out on a motorcycle. Ella texts Jonah to apologize for walking out on his announcement. David breaks into a mansion. Ella hooks up with a mysterious brunette chick. Lauren decides to go through with the hookerness. David steals the painting, cat burglar-style. Ella is being watched by the investigator who interrogated David. Dr. Mancini stays wide awake with a guilty conscience in bed with his wife and son. Violet steals the memorial photo of Sydney. And the shocker. Auggie stops in a deserted alley to burn some bloody clothes. Why, Auggie? It's always the quiet, boring ones with steely eyes who claim to have a vendetta against a phantom assailant.
Discuss this episode in the Melrose Place forums, and see how the new cast stacks up against the original flavor.
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